The process of giving birth to a child is messy, raw, and brutal but it is also filled with beauty and strength that make you proud to be a woman.

Earlier in the month of March, a birth photographer Vanessa Mendez documented the home birth of baby Indigo June with mother Vanessa DeCosta and shared the real, raw, and inspiring images on Facebook. The images soon went viral all over the world with more than 376,000 shares, because they highlighted the beauty of birth and the incredible strength mothers possess.

On the morning of March 11, Mendez got a call from her client, Vanessa, saying that she was in labor with her second child.

Knowing that her husband, who is in the US Army’s Physician Assistant Program, had a big microbiology test the next day, Vanessa had let her husband sleep, taken her phone into the bathroom, and settled into the bathtub, being as quiet as possible – but soon she couldn’t be quiet anymore.

Soon her husband, Josiah, woke up and rushed into the bathroom, along with the entire home birth team: Vanessa’s doula, Desiree, her certified nurse midwife, Nikki McIver-Brown, and her birth photographer, Mendez.

The mommy-to-be was moved from the floor of the bedroom, back to the bathroom, and finally to the birthing pool once her body was ready.

Writing her birth story, Vanessa says, “I remember thinking I was going to rip the door frame off because I was gripping so hard.”

Soon, the pool was ready, and Vanessa climbed in with her husband. A few contractions later, the strong and beautiful mother saw her baby’s head.

She writes, “And a few contractions later, I looked down, and there was the baby’s head… RIGHT THERE, not going back up into my body but just… sitting there. It stung, but I was so happy to see it,” she explains.

Soon, she pushed her baby out and, at her midwife’s instruction, pulled her baby out of her body.

The story generated many positive responses on Facebook, with one user, Linda Lopez, saying, “Wow this is phenomenal and just breathtaking. It was so beautiful to see these amazing photos of humanity. I’m just shaking, I just kept scrolling tearing up with so much love and amazement watching these moments being captured frame by frame. beautiful.”